And I had a new manager at that point. She’s still my manager today: Shari. Part of me thought that it was just gonna be a temporary thing until my dad and I were ready to heal the wound, but this other part of me kind of knew that it was for good. At that point, like, my shit was blowing up even bigger than it did with the first album. I started steadily releasing all the tracks I had been recording with Trick and Deez and Bunny, and people were getting really excited about them, and I started to realize that, like, I pretty much already had the second album and now all that was left to do was put it all together and release it.

Deez had sort of become the main producer, and basically every day I was going over to his place and laying down new tracks and tweaking old ones and just working out the sound, you know, refining the thing. The album didn’t have a concept, but it definitely had a sound, and it was a little more edgy than the first one. I mean, I don’t think it was like, HARD or something—like, it wasn’t some Scaggs shit—but I was definitely being honest about what my life was like, and like, the sound of the music reflected that. The album my dad and I did together had this very bright, like, very enthusiastic sound, and this new sound was more like, swagger, you know? That’s the best way I can describe it.

So I was in the middle of finishing that up and doing press and playing the new songs at radio stations and going on late-night shows, and I didn’t really realize that my mom and my dad were drifting apart too. I could kind of feel it whenever I’d go hang out with my mom. When my dad would come up, my mom would always sort of make this face like she was trying to smile and come off as though this was just a hard thing we were going through as a family and of course it would pass, but I guess what was really going on was like, our fight had sort of unleashed a lot of the worst parts of my father that had been put to bed by all of our success, and now that guy was coming back—that guy that my mom could never really stand—and unless he was going to do something about it, the strain was gonna be too much to take.

And then one day I went over to my parents’ place, and my mom and I were like, sitting in the backyard by the pool having some barbeque that this Polynesian chef had prepared for us, and I just flat-out asked her, like: What’s the deal? How come Dad is never here when I come to visit? And she just looked at me with these sad eyes, and she started crying.

And when she told me they were done, I felt this wave of relief pass over me. At the time, my attitude was like: Fuck this guy, you know? He’s being a whiny little bitch and he’s acting like a total fucking loser, and my mom doesn’t need that shit right now. My mom is such a loving, caring, amazing person, and she doesn’t need all this negativity weighing her down. And so I was glad that she was gonna get a chance to see what it was like without him.